Joint-Statement on UN experts’ call on government to stop targeting and retaliating against human rights lawyers

Egypt

In a joint-statement, Lawyers for Lawyers and 27 other organizations endorsed the letter by five UN Special Rapporteurs, published on 19 May 2024, addressing the Egyptian government about the targeting of human rights lawyers through counter-terrorism legislation, resulting in their imprisonment or cessation of activities.

The letter highlights the cases of Mohamed Issa Rajeh and Mahmoud Abdelmajeed Adel from the Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR), investigated by the Supreme Security State Prosecution in June 2023 on false charges due to their legitimate work documenting human rights violations, providing legal aid, and cooperating with UN mechanisms. In their letter, the Special Rapporteurs urged the Egyptian government to stop prosecuting and arbitrarily arresting lawyers, in line with demands from UN experts and Egyptian rights organizations.

This targeting represents intimidation and reprisal against lawyers working to counter human rights violations and collaborating with UN mechanisms. In 2017, Ibrahim Metwally, lawyer and founder of the League of the Families of the Forcibly Disappeared, was arrested before traveling to Geneva to attend a meeting with the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Metwally remains in prolonged pretrial detention to date. Lawyer Ezzat Ghoneim, founder and director of the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, his colleague and fellow human rights lawyer Hoda Abdel Moneim, and others from the same organization, were arrested and prosecuted for their human rights work, and subsequently sentenced to prison by the State Security Emergency Court. In August 2018, the Fifth Terrorism Circuit Court in Cairo sentenced Egyptian human rights defender Bahey el-Din Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), to 15 years in prison in absentia for statements made during a UN event.

The ongoing politically-motivated prosecution and imprisonment by the Egyptian government aims to suppress civil society and contradicts its official statements on human rights.

The undersigned organizations call for the immediate release of detained lawyers and human rights defenders, the dropping of charges, and the quashing of convictions against those prosecuted for peacefully exercising their rights.

To read the joint-statement click here.